Short Sale Nation Launches to Help Owners Of Properties With 'Upside Down' Mortgages New Nonprofit Helps Homeowners Navigate the Complexity of Real Estate Short Sales with Online Tools and Resources; Educating in Alternative to Foreclosure Kirkland, Washington (PRWEB) March 8, 2009 Americans continue to lose real estate wealth in record numbers. In 2008, homeowners lost $2.4 trillion of their housing wealth and 20% of the mortgages in America were under water (where mortgage balances exceed the property's value) at the end of December, according to First American CoreLogic, a California-based provider of real-estate data and mortgage analytics. That's more than 8.3 million mortgages compared with 7.6 million three months earlier and it's a problem that is expected to get worse as home prices continue to fall. An additional 2.2 million mortgaged properties throughout the country are approaching negative equity, the report found. Many homeowners are now in a position they never imagined and are ill-equipped to deal with. They don't fully understand their options and they don't know where to turn. That's why Short Sale Nation (http://www.ShortSaleNation.org) was founded. Short Sale Nation is a newly-launched, online self-service tool, designed to help homeowners and their real estate agents facilitate a short sale. A short sale occurs when a home is sold for an amount less than the full payoff amount of the loan. Getting the lender to accept less than what is owed can be difficult, confusing and stressful. The benefit of doing a short sale is that it gives the seller some control over how their debt is handled. Otherwise in a foreclosure, the homeowner is still responsible for the deficiency, something many homeowners don't realize. Short Sale Nation has a step-by-step guide through the short sale process and sample documents to provide an example of what homeowners need to send to their lender. There is also a safe online activity and call log for homeowners, so their agent and attorney can exchange notes. Additionally the site includes a place where homeowners can rate the cooperation of their lenders and make comments and ratings that are then made available to the public so that lenders can be held to better business practices. "The term short sale is growing in recognition due to the fact that so many sellers are upside down in their mortgages. Short sales are very complex issues to deal with," said Gerhard Ade, Caldwell Banker, Realtor, Kirkland, WA. "I'm very pleased to see that there is now a nonprofit service available that helps homeowners and their agents understand what's involved and gives instruction in how to equalize the debt to value imbalance while trying to sell in a negative equity situation." "Completing a short sale can be a long, stressful and complicated process. By definition, the term 'short sale' is deceiving," said Jack Burns, Director, Short Sale Nation. "Nothing about the process is 'short' and understanding all of the aspects of a short sale can be difficult. Short Sale Nation wants to help inform you how to do a short sale and provide you with the right resources and tools to help you get it completed." About Short Sale Nation
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